Friday, January 16, 2009

Callaghan Pursuits

The individual sprints on Friday didn't exactly yield a bumper crop of high North American finishes. The best results were Andy Newell's seventh, winning the B final, and Devon Kershaw's eighth. The U.S. and Canada went back-to-back on the women's side, too, with Kikkan Randall and Sara Renner finishing fourteenth and fifteenth.

Can we hope for better in Saturday's pursuits? Sure, why not! But I'll put my money (such as it isn't) mostly elsewhere:

men's 2x15km pursuit
1. Pietro Piller Cottrer
2. Giorgio di Centa
3. Ivan Babikov

women's 2x7.5km pursuit
1. Justyna Kowalczyk
2. Arianna Follis
3. Valentina Shevchenko

3 comments:

Luke S said...

Babikov 5th, Kershaw 10th, Freeman 16th. Freeman was right with the leaders until just after the transition, the only explanation that I can think of was that he had bad skis and had to totally spend himself to stay with the lead pack on the classic leg. Or he just died. He's usually nearly as strong in freestyle as in classic, so its hard to think why he would drop off so abruptly.

Luke S said...

make that 18th for Freeman, 2:51 back, every second of it lost after the transition.

Christopher Tassava said...

Wow. I can't wait to see what Piller Cottrer did to explode off the front between the 24.1 and 26.25 checks - from 9 to 30 seconds...